| July 18, 2008 |
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Since the addition of the MARRIED PUT strategy tools, we have received plenty of feedback and suggestions for improvement. As a result, we have upgraded the MARRIED PUT POSITION ANALYSIS tool to show possible follow-up management trade ideas for your existing married put trades.
The nature of the trade is that it won't be profitable unless the stock rises significantly or you do some management trading to help pay for the cost of the put insurance you purchased.
Now, when you analyze your married put trades in the position analysis tool, and your stock has moved up or down by 5% or more, the tool will show you some trading ideas that may help generate income and make you more profitable faster. |
| June 9, 2008 |
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Got a stock that is profitable right now and you want to lock-in that profit to guarantee it will stay no matter where the stock goes? You can do exactly that by purchasing a long put option and making your long stock a married put strategy.
We have just added a new tool to the site that will illustrate each married put that might be created from your exact stock position - the tool will show you what puts you might purchase and what profit you can lock in and for how long.
In fact, you might even consider selling some call options to help finance the put purchase, and the tool will show you those details as well - helping you turn a long stock or married put position into a collar play.
Two ways to access the POSITION INSURANCE tool...
1. From the MORE INFO button next to a long stock position in the portfolio.
2. From the MARRIED PUT or COLLARS strategy tabs. |
| May 15, 2008 |
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You can now view the price and return data in a chain view for Fixed Return Options (FROs). To access this chain simply click the Other Strategies Tab and add Fixed Return Options to your available strategies. If you are unfamiliar with FROs, there are numerous resources available in the Fixed Return Options Learning Center located on the FRO Home Page. |
| May 7, 2008 |
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A new strategy has been added to the PowerOptions tools, Extended Collars. This new strategy will allow you to screen for Collars where:- The put can have the same expiration month as the call or be further out in time.
- The put can be OTM for standard collars or ITM to allow for greater protection, but less return.
- The put can be below the call strike price or above.
These new strategy tools allow much more flexibility to find positions with a very low risk, but still include the standard Collar positions as well. The "Extended Collar" feature will eventually replace the "Collar" strategy presently used. If you use the collar strategy, we suggest you replace it with the Extended Collar version by using the Other Strategies tab. |
| April 25, 2008 |
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A date filter has been added to allow screening for earnings out several weeks independent of expiration date. This will allow a search for recent earnings events when using straddles, strangles, or buying puts or calls. |
| March 20, 2008 |
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The PROFIT/LOSS CHART links on the SmartSearchXL and OneStrike tools has been updated to use the custom spread builder/analyzer tool. This link is more informative than the previous link which only showed a chart. This tool will show the chart and allow you to make position adjustments and see how the position could turn out over time with price changes. |
| March 19, 2008 |
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Search filters have been added to the SmartSearchXL for Bid/Ask Spread on the following strategies:- Covered Call/Put
- Naked Call/Put
- Long Call/Put
- Married Call/Put
The bid/ask spread data is available for filtering, sorting, and viewable in the result set. |
| March 18, 2008 |
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The Custom Spread Tool has been updated to include a new theoretical profit/loss line in the P/L graph. This line is an estimate of P/L at the half way mark between today and option expiration. If you recalculate the position, then the half-life line adjusts to the new analysis date. This feature is particularly important for option strategies like straddles, strangles and married puts where you expect to exit the position before expiration. Also, we have added the % Maximum Risk for applicable strategies. |
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The following search filters have been added to the SmartSearchXL for Iron Condors and Iron Butterflies:- % Prob Above Short Put
- % Prob Below Short Call
These columns are available for filtering, sorting, and viewable in the result set. |
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The SmartSearchXL tools have been updated to allow sorting by Industry & Sector. |
| March 13, 2008 |
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The site has been updated with two more option strategies: Married Puts and Married Calls. These new strategies have been added to the SmartSearchXL, OneStrike, SmartHistoryXL tools for searching and back-testing. You can search for them by some value-added calculations like maximum risk and percent maximum risk. For more information, each strategy has a strategy help page like our other 20 strategies. |
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Due to popular demand the stop-loss columns have been added back into the regular Position Portfolio view. |
| February 27, 2008 |
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The Position/PaperTrading Portfolio has been upgraded with some new features.- The Portfolio now handles custom spread positions with up to four legs, including ratio spread positions. Further increased flexibility allows closing any number of trades in a multi-leg position. The custom spread tool allows one-click convenience for adding any spread position into the portfolio.
- An improved alert system allows alerts to be set for stock price, option prices, value change, percent change, Bollinger Band crossover, 52 week high/low crossover, and SMA crossover.
- An improved position events/notes feature allows you to track all of the changes and adjustments you encounter with each position, including the ability to add custom notes.
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| January 16, 2008 |
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The SmartHistoryXL tool has been updated to include the search by symbol allowing you to screen one stock symbol at a time. Stocks in your Watch List have also been added into the Recommended List field of the SmartHistoryXL tool. These features were previously added to the SmartSearchXL tool. |
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You can now screen for and view %Probability Above Call and %Probability below Put in the Collar Strategy. |
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We have updated the Sample Search section for all strategies. These are not recommendations of what to trade, but the criteria can be used as a stepping stone to help you create your own search that matches your risk-reward tolerance. |
| January 2, 2008 |
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New updates have been made to the SmartSearchXL Tools. You can now use the full filtering capability of the SmartSearchXL tool while searching for one stock or index at a time by simply entering a stock symbol in the SEARCH BY SYMBOL box on the tool itself. This works much like the current search by symbol tools, but affords the greater filtering capability of the SmartSearchXL tools.
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You can now use the stock symbol list that is in your PowerWatch WATCHLIST as a RECOMMENDED LIST to filter in the SmartSearchXL tool. Your WATCHLIST will appear in the RECOMMENDED LIST for each strategy. |
| December 24, 2007 |
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The Bollinger Band capability has been enhanced. Two new screening variables have been added % BB (20) and % Band Width (20). Our present capability could only find stocks outside the bands, with % BB (20) you can now screen for a stock price any place in or out of the band. Zero is defined as the bottom of the Band and 100 as the top. A number of greater than 105 would be all break outs 5% over the top band.
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% Band Width (20) gives a measure of the recent volatility. A narrow band is interpreted as low volatility, which will eventually expand. Large numbers can be used as an overbought indicator. Both default and sample search settings have been set up to get you started. |
| November 27, 2007 |
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We have just released a spread building tool for all of you who are looking for specialty spreads. This tool allows you to build and analyze: Ratio Spreads, Reversal Spreads, All Call and All Put Condor Spreads and Butterfly Spreads, etc. You can build any spread that can be built with up to 4 separate option trades in any proportion or long/short stock in combination with up to 3 options. Once built, the tool will present you with margin requirements, max risk, max gain, and graphical analysis of the potential risk/return for the trade. Further, since most investors don't have option symbols memorized, we have outfitted this tool with a new way to view the available options for any given stock and the capability to add them into the analysis with ease. You can find the new custom spread builder tool as a new TAB you can add using the OTHER STRATEGIES tab in the navigation - or as a secondary tab under each regular spread strategy tab. |
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We have just released our first recorded Webinar. This Webinar is an 11 minute session introducing PowerOptions tools from logon to performance of a SmartSearch. We plan to have other recorded Webinars available on the site under the Learning Center in the near future and also plan to host some live Webinars for those interested in getting more out of the PowerOptions suite of tools. You can access the Webinar from the Learning Center: Webinars link. |
| November 26, 2007 |
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Due to popular demand the SmartSearchXL Tools have been upgraded to include search criteria for Bollinger Band breakouts. This feature allows you to find stocks that are breaking out above upper bands at 20, 50, 100, and 250 days or breaking out below lower bands at 20, 50, 100, and 250 days - based on 2 standard deviations or stock price movement. Many popular investment strategies operate based on the belief that stocks will continue to operate outside the Bollinger Bands or belief that stock prices will return within the bands. |
| October 19, 2007 |
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The "Search by Symbol" tool is now available to SmartHistoryXL subscribers. You can now view historical positions one stock or index at a time for any day since April 2006 using the historical Search by Symbol tool. |
| October 16, 2007 |
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The Option Chain tool has been upgraded to allow historical data. The tool appears normal with current data by default - Now you can use the PREV, NEXT, and CURRENT links to see the option chain with data from previous days. Up to 8 previous trading days is available to everyone - a chain from any day in our historical data is available for SmartHistoryXL subscribers. |
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A subscription to SmartHistoryXL allows you to backtest and fine-tune any of your search criteria or our default search criteria interactively on any day since April 2006 and see how your search results would have performed from search to expiration day. |
| September 26, 2007 |
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You can now roll Covered Calls with one click in the Profit/Loss Portfolio. Simply select "Roll Out" from the "Position Options" menu to access the new feature. |
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You can now roll Covered Call opportunities from the Position Analysis Roll Out Opportunities into your Profit/Loss Portfolio. |
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% Unchanged Annual has been added to the Calendar Call and Put SmartSearchXL tools. |
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% EPSG has been added to the Credit and Debit Spread, Straddle, and Strangle SmartSearchXL tools. |
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The navigation menu has been updated to allow for up to eight strategy tabs to be viewable at one time. In the "Other Strategies" menu configuration, default menu configurations have been provided for Bullish, Bearish, and Neutral strategies. |
| August 7, 2007 |
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The Position Portfolio tool has been updated with a new user interface and now has the added capability of seeing some Position Analysis data. The Position Analysis data is still available for each position by clicking the More Info link next to a position, but now you can monitor the liquidation and expiration information for all positions in a portfolio at once.
Also added some market averages (Dow Ind., S&P 500, and NASDAQ) to the Profit/Loss page to allow comparison to your portfolio changes.
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| July 19, 2007 |
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The Position Analysis tool has been updated to show Roll Out opportunities for the Naked Put Strategy. If you are tracking a Naked Put trade in your portfolio click the More Information button, select Position Options then Position Analysis to view potential management techniques. |
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The Stock Research Tool has been expanded to include the % Current Option Volume and the Average Daily Option Volume. |
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The Power Tips have been expanded. There are now a variety of helpful hints available on the various tools and strategy home pages. |
| June 7, 2007 |
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A month selector was added to the Profit / Loss Portfolio. This will allow you to view just the options expiring in a given month to help manage rolling trades. |